SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Doutor Nichires Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Doutor Nichires Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Doutor Nichires Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Doutor Nichires Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Doutor Nichires Holdings operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Doutor Nichires Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Doutor Nichires Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Doutor Nichires Holdings
Strengths of Doutor Nichires Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Doutor Nichires Holdings in Restaurants industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided Doutor Nichires Holdings a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Analytics focus
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Restaurants industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Organizational Resilience of Doutor Nichires Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Doutor Nichires Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Doutor Nichires Holdings has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Training and development
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Doutor Nichires Holdings has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Restaurants industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Doutor Nichires Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Restaurants sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Doutor Nichires Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Restaurants industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Doutor Nichires Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Doutor Nichires Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Doutor Nichires Holdings are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Doutor Nichires Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Skills based hiring in Restaurants industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Doutor Nichires Holdings has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Doutor Nichires Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Doutor Nichires Holdings to provide better information regarding Restaurants products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Doutor Nichires Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Restaurants industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Doutor Nichires Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Doutor Nichires Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Doutor Nichires Holdings has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Restaurants industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Doutor Nichires Holdings is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Restaurants industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Doutor Nichires Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Doutor Nichires Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Restaurants industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Doutor Nichires Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Doutor Nichires Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Restaurants industry, but Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Doutor Nichires Holdings to focus more on services in the Restaurants industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Doutor Nichires Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Buying journey improvements
– Doutor Nichires Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Doutor Nichires Holdings can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Doutor Nichires Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Doutor Nichires Holdings can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Restaurants industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Doutor Nichires Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Doutor Nichires Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Restaurants industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Restaurants industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Doutor Nichires Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Doutor Nichires Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Restaurants industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Doutor Nichires Holdings to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Doutor Nichires Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Doutor Nichires Holdings can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Doutor Nichires Holdings to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Doutor Nichires Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Doutor Nichires Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Doutor Nichires Holdings to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Doutor Nichires Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Doutor Nichires Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Doutor Nichires Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Doutor Nichires Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Doutor Nichires Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Restaurants industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Doutor Nichires Holdings can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Restaurants industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Restaurants industry are lowering. It can presents Doutor Nichires Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Restaurants sector.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Doutor Nichires Holdings in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Doutor Nichires Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Restaurants sector.
Increasing wage structure of Doutor Nichires Holdings
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Doutor Nichires Holdings.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Doutor Nichires Holdings demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Restaurants industry and other sectors.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Doutor Nichires Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Doutor Nichires Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Doutor Nichires Holdings high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Doutor Nichires Holdings can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Doutor Nichires Holdings prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.